Abstract
Providing feedback is considered to be an ethical and professional responsibility of the lecturer in Higher Education (HE). However, students – especially international students - seldom make good use of the feedback. The current study investigated the impact of lecturer e-correction and students’ active self-correction (ASC) on international postgraduate students’ writing performance in a university in the UK. Findings indicated that the ASC groups outperformed the lecturer e-correction groups. Students’ attitudes towards error correction were explored by means of a survey at the beginning of the treatment and by focus group discussions towards the end. Findings revealed that students found the self-correction method difficult but rewarding. They believed that it was fairer as it provided students (especially low-achieving students) with more opportunities to reflect on their work and improve it at their own pace. The paper provides recommendations for further research and highlights implications for theory and practice.